Wednesday, October 20, 2010

This blog entry isn't about knitting. I wish it could have been, but my life took a decided turn in a different direction for the past month or so. My "knitting" hat got laid aside for a while. I have been wearing my "horse" hat more and more lately, and almost exclusively for the past week. It even temporarily displaced the "Mom" hat for a few days. Now that it's over I can tell you what it is was all about. Now I can wear the "Mom" hat until I catch up with my kids, and then the "knitting" hat now and again. (Just as soon as I get past an orchestra concert this weekend, because I must wear the "cello" hat a little bit more until then).

In June of last year my daughter and I became the owners of a wonderful bay Arabian Andalusian crossbred mare, "Fae". Fae was abandoned by her owner, and rescued by our farrier, who sold her to us for practically nothing. Fae was about four, and not broken in at the time. I have quite a bit of horse experience from my high school years (long distant), but had always wanted to break in a horse, so this was my chance. Fae has turned out to be a remarkable horse to train because of her athleticism and intelligence, but breaking her in was not without, um, challenges! Over the year we also acquired a little grey pony who was almost starved to death from neglect, and rescued by a friend. "Cloud" has turned out to be a great driving pony. But I digress.

Fae and Cloud were good enough reasons to get involved with horse rescue, but I have even deeper reasons than that, reasons that go back decades, and that involve deeply buried pain. Fae and Cloud have helped me to face that pain, and have helped me to heal. I decided that I wanted to do something to help promote horse rescue: I volunteered to organize and host a competitive trail challenge for the American Competitive Trail Horse Association (ACTHA) website HERE. People bring their horses from all over the country to these competitve trail challenges, and have what amounts to a trail ride with obstacles that are judged and scored. It involves big money and big prizes. Some of the proceeds go back to ACTHA, and the rest are awarded to the affiliate (me). So to get back to why this blog isn't about knitting, I hosted the "Mullet Hall Competitive Trail Challenge" for ACTHA on October 16th. It kind of took over my life. It was really really challenging and stressful to organize and run, but now that it's over it was SO MUCH FUN!!

And we made $660 which will go to South Carolina Awareness and Rescue for Equines (SCARE website HERE)!!!!

The granite socks (previous blog entry) became the third prize in one of the divisions. The recipient was delighted, and I hope they keep her feet warm inside her riding boots all winter!